Meet Nado: Kraken's Biggest Onchain Bet Yet

Introduction

When Hyperliquid crossed Coinbase in annual trading volume, it became impossible for centralized exchanges to ignore what was happening.

In 2025, Hyperliquid processed roughly $2.6 trillion in notional volume, compared to Coinbase's $1.4 trillion. A protocol that didn't exist a few years ago had grown into one of the largest trading venues in crypto.

Every major CEX has had to pick a response. But, Kraken did something structurally different: it built an L2 (Ink), seeded it with a battle-tested perp DEX team (Nado, born from the Vertex acquihire), and wrapped it in a vertically integrated launch program (Kraken 360). That's the most ambitious onchain answer any major CEX has put forward so far. 

Meet Nado: The Next Generation of Perps 

Nado was born in July 2025 when the team behind Vertex, the perp DEX that processed $135 billion in cumulative volume on Arbitrum with zero documented exploits, joined the Ink Foundation. Vertex was the highest-notional perp DEX on Arbitrum from November 2023 through September 2024, and its synchronous orderbook engine is now powering Nado.

By March 2026, Nado had processed over $48 billion in cumulative volume and averaged roughly 3,000 to 4,000 daily active users. In January 2026, it ranked #12 among perp DEXs by 30-day volume at $10.34 billion. It was also described by Blocmates as the leading app on Ink, while Ink itself publicly highlighted Nado as the network’s top revenue app. 

Nado’s Trading Terminal, Source: Nado

The next phase of Nado's growth story is starting to take shape. And this time, the focus is on rewarding the users helping drive activity across the platform. 

Season 2 of the Nado points program just kicked off, giving traders fresh incentives to provide liquidity and trade, and that’s the kind of momentum you’d expect from a project that’s about to flip the switch on a Kraken TGE airdrop later this year.

One Killer Feature that Others Don’t Have

One of Nado's most distinctive features is its “unified margin” architecture. While many traders are familiar with unified accounts on centralized exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, and OKX, most onchain trading venues have historically separated spot, perpetuals, and lending activity into different systems.

Nado combines all three within a single margin engine. Traders can use one collateral pool across spot positions, perpetuals, and money markets, while an onchain risk engine continuously evaluates portfolio-level exposure and applies margin offsets where appropriate. Deposits can also earn native yield generated through lending activity and platform fees, helping idle capital remain productive.

The end result is a trading experience that feels much closer to a centralized exchange. Instead of managing separate accounts or moving collateral between different products, traders can use a single pool of capital across spot, perpetuals, and lending markets, making their funds more efficient. 

On the execution side, Nado claims matching speeds of 5 to 15 milliseconds, with an offchain sequencer batching orders to an onchain clearinghouse. That’s CEX-grade speed with onchain verifiability, a combination that most perp DEXs fudge with airdrop farming incentives while Nado built it into the architecture from day one.

The TAM Nado is targeting

Perpetual futures remain the largest product in crypto trading. Spot markets get most of the headlines, but derivatives generate the overwhelming majority of exchange volume. Even after Hyperliquid's breakout success, centralized exchanges still control most of that market. 

Perp DEX market share has grown from roughly 2.7% to 26% in just a couple of years, yet the bulk of derivatives activity still sits with Binance, Bybit, OKX, Coinbase, and Kraken.

When you consider that the top 11 CEX perp venues still do $4.7 trillion in average monthly volume even after the DEX surge, the number Nado is aiming for is easily a trillion-plus monthly figure.

No guarantees, but the pieces fit 

Sure, Hyperliquid still holds $4.06 billion in TVL and the deepest liquidity in the sector. Nado has a long way to go on raw volume.

But Nado’s “unified margin” is the actual product differentiator. The Vertex team has the track record and Kraken's 10M users are a distribution channel no other challenger perp DEX has access to. If Nado's active user count and open interest hold after the Ink TGE concludes, this could be a top-five perp DEX story by end of 2026. 

The early read is more encouraging than anything else competing for that spot right now. 

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